Silvio Berlusconi should be remembered for more than just his passion for football and sex. He was the first European leader this century to identity illegal immigration as an existential threat to the stability and cohesion of the continent.

Ironically, the former Italian prime minister’s infamous ‘Bunga-Bunga’ parties reportedly owed their name to a joke once told to Berlusconi by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, a man who was also acutely aware of Europe’s vulnerability.